Personal musings on Israel, Jewish matters, history and how they all affect each other

Monday, March 14, 2011

The Long Long War

The other day a group of readers got into a heated debate about Israeli control of the West Bank and settlements. I actually thought of responding with a post of my own which would try to pull together the various strands of the discussion and present a coherent position. Then, while I was engaged in other things, there was the murderous attack in Itamar, and it seemed the wrong time to be explaining (not for the first time) why Itamar shouldn't be there, even though peace is not in the offings. So some other day.

In the meantime, Melanie Phillips has pulled together lots of examples of what she calls "armchair barbarism", in which respectable western media blames Jews for getting murdered.

It doesn't seem the right time to be caviling at Melanie Phillips, but the post you link to is a really clear-cut example. The weirdly disjointed way she quoted the New York Times article caught my attention, so I clicked through and read it myself.

Phillips writes: "So to the New York Times, it’s not the Arab massacre of a Jewish family which has jeopardised ‘peace prospects’ -- because the Israelis will quite rightly never trust any agreement with such savages -- but instead Israeli policy on building more homes, on land to which it is legally and morally entitled, which is responsible instead for making peace elusive. Twisted, and sick."

The New York Times actually wrote: "Israel responded defiantly . . . with a measure that infuriated Palestinians and, together with the attack, threw already shaky peace efforts into a new tailspin. . . . The bloodshed, which shattered a lengthy lull in the West Bank, threatened to drive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking even further out of reach."

So Melanie Phillips says that according to the New York Times, "it’s not the Arab massacre of a Jewish family which has jeopardised ‘peace prospects’." The New York Times actually writes that the massacre (along with Israel's response) threatens peace efforts.

I don't wish to get into a debate about the underlying merits. Maybe it's still barbaric to say that the murder and the Israeli response (as opposed to just the murder) jeopardize peace efforts. I'm simply noting that Phillips is clearly mischaracterizing what the NYT wrote. At best, she's dissimulating in the service of a "higher truth." At worst, you know.

There are no peace efforts, RK, unless you count Israeli requests of the Palestinians that they please return to negotiations. There's no tailspin. The Israeli announcement of building 400 apartments in towns the Palestinian negotiators have already ceded (with the exception of Ariel) merely shows that in spite of all the endless chatter, including by the Americans, the Israelis actually are respecting a construction freeze even as they're being universally damned for construction which isn't happening. That's the reality. It also happens to be totally lacking from the NYT report, this time or any other time.

Speaking of incitement, state-paid rabbis are saying that non-Jews only exist to serve the Jews, and that houses shouldn't be rented to Arabs. Even the Druze, who serve in the Army, have been driven from their apartments because of this rabbinic ruling.

Speaking of incitement, the Jewish terrorist David Raziel is vastly honored in Israel. More than 100 streets and even a town are named after this deranged man who masterminded the blowing to smithereens of dozens of Arab children, women and elderly people.

Speaking of incitement, Rabbi Yitzchak Shapira wrote a book on how to kill Gentiles, with passages such as: "One must consider killing even babies, who have not violated the seven Noahide laws, because of the future danger that will be caused if they are allowed to grow up to be as wicked as their parents.”

Speaking of incitement, Housing Minister Ariel Attias has warned agaist the "spreading" of Arabs in the Galilee, and called Arabs and Jews "populations that should not mix."

Speaking of incitement, dozens of rebbetzins have penned a letter in which they call on Jewish girls not to work where Arab men work.

In Spanish we've got a saying about glass houses and stone-throwing -- does it exist in English too?

The NYT story you quote says that the Itamar killings "shattered a lengthy lull in the West Bank."

This is a most curious way of presenting facts, considering that Amr Qawasme, an unarmed 65-year-old Palestinian, was gruesomely killed in his bed by IDF soldiers only two months ago. But no problem with that; if only Palestinian civilians are murdered, that's a lull. Only when Jews are killed is the lull shattered.

I wish there were a betting booth where I could predict Fake Ibrahim's actions. I might be richt by now.

Question: Did Ibrahim the Fraudster smell far away in front of his Argentinian piano that I was off line for some days? and that it might be worth stretching his tentacles testing the water for a bit of blog-pimping again?

Anyway: Ibrahim is a Troll, by NOT clicking on him, you contribute to keeping his google ratings down.

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When I read todays Abbas condemnation of the Itamar massacre I was amazed that, provided the translation is correct, that nobody is calling him out on what he really said i.e. "no human" perpetrator, not humanE human.

if I were a lover of mythicals I would understand it in the way it is probably supposed to be understood.